Ruth and Wilber

Ruth and Wilber own a beautiful house in Bayview, where they have lived for decades after their marriage. The couple, however, had much to worry about in the past year. Wilber’s deteriorating health peaked since his first stroke and the day he was diagnosed with cancer. Concerned about her husband and her estate, Ruth foresaw the pain and the costs her grandchildren would endure on the day they inherit her property. Probate court would be expensive, time-consuming, and an unpleasant way to honor hers and Wilber’s life.

To avoid such pain, Ruth came by Open Door Legal and asked for an attorney. Together with Wilber, she wanted to make a will and a living trust to leave their estate to each other and then to their three grandchildren. Fortunately, Open Door Legal is one of the very few organizations that do estate planning for low-income families. Gibson, one of our staff attorneys, took on Ruth’s case and started gathering all the necessary documents to make her wish come true. Gibson drafted a Grant Deed and a Revocable Trust, which distributed Ruth and Wilber’s assets equally amongst her grandchildren.

A couple of months after Ruth first entered our office, the court successfully accepted and validated her will and her living trust. Probate court and unforeseeable legal disputes do not cross Ruth’s mind anymore. She is grateful for Open Door Legal and glad she can spend time with her loving husband without having to worry about their estate.

Philip Green

Belinda Liu

Sil Liapis

Elder Law Attorney

(415) 610-5991
sil@opendoorlegal.org

Hannah Wischnia

Engagement Associate

(415) 906-0578
hannah@opendoorlegal.org

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Our Story

Our organization started when we realized that it was in fact possible to ensure universal access to civil representation for everyone. For years, we had watched existing legal aid nonprofits turn away more people than they helped. We had seen the government grossly underfund legal aid and attach ever-more restrictions on who could be helped. We had witnessed the private sector invest atrociously little of its accumulated wealth into legal aid.

The result of this is predictable: legal aid has become the least resourced social need in the United States. Most low and moderate-income Americans can’t get help, and as a result can’t properly enforce their rights.

We realized that by combining program innovations, new strategies for generating earned income, and a focus on fundraising from the general public we could create a system that solved this massive problem and guaranteed access to legal representation for everyone in a community, on every issue.

We decided to prototype this system in Bayview/Hunters Point because it was the only high-need neighborhood of San Francisco without a legal aid office in the neighborhood. In late 2012 we raised about $8,000 in seed funding from some generous private donors and decided to put our theories to the test.

We opened our doors on January 7th, 2013. In our first year, our core staff worked tirelessly on minimum wage to deliver services to dozens of clients. The heating in the office didn’t work, the furniture was rotten, and we couldn’t afford a receptionist. We had to scrounge office supplies and equipment from people we knew.

But we proved that our model could work. We never turned away someone for services who lived in the local community, and by rigorously tracking our outcomes we were able to get more and more support from people that hadn’t funded legal aid before. We tripled our budget between our first and second year and tripled it again in our third year.

We’ve come a long way since the days when we had to hand shred everything because we couldn’t afford a shredder. We’re excited by what the future can bring and look forward to growing our model out to encompass more and more people.

Our Board of Directors

We are proud to have a diverse board featuring local residents and professionals from a variety of different industries. The board is in charge of implementing the member-approved annual budget and overseeing our staff.